WASHINGTON – Muslims are projected to replace Jews as America’ssecond-largest religious group after Christians by 2040, with theirpopulation estimated to reach approximately 8 million in about 20 years,according to a new study.
New estimates from the Pew Research Centerlink>showthat there were about 3.45 million Muslims of all ages living in the US in2017, and that Muslims made up about 1.1 percent of the total US population.
“By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation’s second-largestreligious group after Christians. And by 2050, the US Muslim population isprojected to reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nation’s total population —nearly twice the share of today,” Pew said.
“Our projections suggest that the US Muslim population will grow muchfaster than the country’s Jewish population. By 2040, Muslims will replaceJews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians,” thereport said.
The number of Muslims in the US has grown at a rate of about 100,000 peryear because of the migration of Muslims to the US and higher fertilityrates among Muslim Americans, Pew found.
“Since our first estimate [2007] of the size of the Muslim Americanpopulation, the number of US Muslims has been growing rapidly,” it said.
Christianity is still by far the largest religion in the United States withdifferent Christian denominations representing about 71 percent of thepopulation.
Pew said calculating the actual population of Muslims living in the UnitedStates is not easy, in part because the US Census Bureau does not askquestions about religion, meaning there is no official government figure ofthe number of Muslims or other religions in the US.
However, some scholars dispute the figures by Pew, arguing that the Muslimpopulation in the US has already reached to about 7 million, which is twicethe figure reported by Pew.